Yesterday, I posted a story called "Goodbye Fantasy PlayStation 4s! It's Been Fun", thinking that Sony would unveil the PlayStation 4 today. Silly me! Sony did unveil the PS4, but didn't show off its new console. Because that's what you do at console reveals these days. You don't show the console.

Later today, Sony is expected to reveal the PlayStation 3's successor. Kotaku has already…
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That's not true, actually. Back at the 2011 E3 gaming expo, Nintendo unveiled its new console, the Wii U, and spent most of the time talking about the its new controller, the Wii U GamePad. But even then, Nintendo showed off the Wii U console. It was tangible. You could see and touch it. It felt real.

But, for some reason, Sony decided not to show the PS4 console today. Instead, it will wait until a later date to show us the gaming machine.

Sony's Shuhei Yoshida told Kotaku that the reason why the Tokyo-based console maker didn't show off the PS4 at the reveal was "we have to keep something new for later. Otherwise you'd get bored."

Well, that was weird. We got a console reveal without Sony actually revealing the console.…
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Pretty sure nobody would get bored. At all.

Not having the console at the event doesn't matter. When you get right down to it, the most important things are the games and the experiences the PS4 will offer. But yet, it does matter. It matters very much.

This is a console reveal. You need to show the console. It's a psychological thing: We need to see the box that will power the games and experiences the PS4 offers. Otherwise, the PS4 will feel incredibly abstract. It won't feel real.

Worse yet, it makes it feel like there was no payoff to the PS4 reveal. No, here's the new controller, here are the new cool games, and finally, here is the machine that will make it all happen. Bam, bam, bam. We're one bam too short, and that's unsatisfying. The entire evening never built to a climax. It just ended, sorely missing that one last bam.

So in the meantime, we are stuck with these fake PS4s. These concept consoles. They're the stuff of fantasy and dreams. And right now, that's all we got.